


Of Mixed Feelings and Flowers

by inkyandness



Category: Nomad of Nowhere (Web Series)
Genre: Episode 6 Mentions, F/F, Flowers, I meant to work on an essay how did this happen, Original Character(s), Original Female Character(s) - Freeform, Toth has a slight identity crisis, Toth's POV/Toth-centric, but let's get real here, who doesn't
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 10:12:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14470434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkyandness/pseuds/inkyandness
Summary: Toth has a lot of mixed feelings about flowers, for whatever reason. Toth also has a lot of mixed feelings about Skout, for the same reason mentioned before.Sometimes, these feelings align with each other.





	Of Mixed Feelings and Flowers

Toth hated flowers.

Well, hate was a strong word. “Hate” was a word she reserved for her feelings on the Nomad, or her feelings about the suffering her people were going through.

She had a moderate dislike to an apathy when it came to flowers.

Sure, flowers were pretty and they did smell nice and they’re nice to see blossoming on a cactus after having to look at sand, sand, and _more_ sand for miles upon miles, but they just don’t last. Flowers may be strong enough to grow in the desert section of the four corners, but that was more out of a personified spite and tenacity than pure strength. They were so _weak_ as well. Flowers were a moment to moment thing, trying to preserve such a beauty would be impossible because they’d wilt and die within two weeks of being plucked from the desert landscape.

Good things weren’t supposed to last. Especially not for Toth.

She supposed that it concerned her when she had mentally described Skout as her own “desert wildflower.” Not hers, precisely, technically, but one nonetheless. She had a thin frame dressed in green that could be described as a stem, and her bright orange hair grew in all directions away from her head like petals. Her hair naturally framed her face as the center of the flower. More like the center of Toth’s world, though…When Toth wasn’t thinking about her people, the Don, or her quest for the Nomad, she was thinking about Skout.

Perhaps Toth didn’t hate flowers as much as she thought.

Maybe it was more of an image thing for her. 

She was Toth. She was the commander of a fierce army bent on capturing the last magic user in the world, and have been on his trail for months. Everywhere she went she brought with her violence and suffering. She was Hell. She wasn’t supposed to like flowers

But she was also Toth. She liked cotton candy. She liked Skout. She liked puns enough to nearly laugh whenever Skout would make them. Under the logic she mentioned before, she wasn’t supposed to like any of these things. She tried, lord knows that she tried, not to like these things to uphold her fierce image, but she just couldn’t. Not a lot of people knew these things about her, if at all, so she supposed that was a bit of a half-comfort.

She _did_ hate that her feelings were always so complicated. This was why she never tried to psychologically examine herself. Most people didn’t have so many mixed feelings about _people,_ people who could be multi-faceted and complex and different depending how well you really know them, but Toth had all these different feelings about _flowers._

She hated them. Disliked them. Felt a mild ambivalence towards them. Loved them for what they represented and who they reminded her of rather than what they were and what they stood for.

Still.

* * *

“Greetings, shop-keeper. I apologize for seeking your wares at such a late hour of the night.” Toth said loudly, standing threateningly in front of the counter. She wasn’t trying to stand threateningly, maybe it was her stance, or her height, or perhaps her clenched fists.

Maybe it was the axe that was strapped to her back, but who was to say?

“No, no, it’s fine. Interrupt my sleep-cycle and whatnot. The name’s Thorne.” Mumbled the shopkeeper, a short teen with dark black hair that was pinned into a tight bun. She rubbed the sleep away from her eyes and stood at the counter in her white tank top and looked rather bored and grumpy.

“The lights were on, and the shop said it was open, so I assumed that the shop was open, Miss Thorne.”

“It was a candle. A single candle. You must really be reaching here, but whatever. Business is business.” She muttered, glaring more at the door behind Toth than Toth herself, but Toth still took a bit of offense with the gesture. Toth sighed and threw more than a few gold pieces onto the counter, and stuck a nice looking knife into the table to sweeten the pot. It wasn’t her favorite one obviously, but still pretty good. This was a trading post after all, and that was what made Thorne wake up and spring to life. “Thorne’s Trinkets, if somebody bought it, we got it. How may I help you?”

“I’m looking for flowers.”

“Any…Specifics there? Like, types or-“

“It doesn’t really matter to me.” This transaction was weighing heavily on Toth. She was tired, and it was late. She was here late because the idea of going to a trading post to get flowers was embarrassing. At least if it was late at night there was some plausible deniability there. None of the Dandy-Lions saw her, and neither did Skout. The shopkeeper was the only witness to her silent shame, and she still looked like she could care less about anything that’s ever happened ever, despite the idea of gaining a bit of an extra profit seeming to function like a pure shot of caffeine.

“But like…What kind?” Thorne said, moving out from behind the counter inside the crowded shop and moving to one of the shelves that held a large amount of dried-out looking plants. “We’ve got purple flowers like Desert Lupine and Mojave Aster, we’ve got Mariposa Lily, we’ve got Sunflowers…”

“Uh, the one before that last one?” Toth said, sounding a bit confused, but trying not to show it in her inflections.

“Desert Mariposa Lily? Coming right up.” Thorne said, and like magic, she wrapped up the flowers into a bouquet with flourish, and tied the whole thing with an orange ribbon, and soon, Thorne placed those flowers into her hands.

“They’re a bit…Wilted.”

“They’re _supposed_ to be. They’re preserved in such a way that they can last for years upon years, and still maintain the same muted colors and sweet scent they’ve carried since day 1.” Thorne said, nonchalantly. “They’re great for pressing too. Like into books? Yeah…”

Toth completely missed that last sentence, because the idea that something like this beautiful could last for years upon years on end and still hold the same beauty practically changed the ball game for her.

Skout was her desert wildflower. Weak to the elements around her, but tenacious enough to stick around. However, under the right conditions, Toth could preserve her. Save her. Save her to save her, and her knowledge, personality, cuteness, gap tooth…Everything that makes Skout, Skout.

“Lady?” Thorne asked, snapping her fingers. “You kind of zoned out there, are you okay?”

“I’m perfectly fine. Thank you for your services.” Toth said, with the same formality she carried when she came in, despite the fact that Thorne probably thought the whole tough thing was a facade.

“Have a nice night, lady. Good luck with your date-mate!” Thorne yelled while Toth walked out the door, and continued to trek into the night. 

Thorne made sure to catch the door to change the “OPEN” sign to “CLOSED,” and blew out the dim light of her candle. 

No strange but pretty, tall visitors were stepping into her shop for the rest of the night, that’s for sure.

* * *

Toth knew she was being so painfully obvious about the whole situation. It wasn’t like any of the other Dandy-lions were mean to Skout, outside of Red Manuel, but they were not nice enough to leave a bouquet of flowers on top over her obscenely large backpack. Or at least, not as smitten as Toth was with her. At this point, she was sure her dumb…Infatuation with Skout was obvious, especially after she abandoned her quest for the Nomad that one time to make sure she got the medical attention she deserved after nearly dying that one time. It took her a long time to get over that incident, and even now, Toth could still hear the words of the Don echoing in her mind, _“I never thought I’d have to tell_ ** _you_** _of all people to stop caring so much…”_ The memory itself was foggy, but the choked-up feeling that had lodged itself in her throat and the knowledge that she was letting down her people never really left her.

She loved her people, but she also loved Skout. Some people may believe that she didn’t care enough, or had no feelings, but she knew that her heart was big enough to love the two of them.

Toth was able to finally fall asleep when the bright orange sun began peaking its way out of the clouds and emerged into dawn, and if the Dandy-lions left their campsite a bit later than they usually would to embark on their quest, nobody said anything about it. Nobody said anything about Skout being a bit giddy and giggly or about Toth being in particularly passively good mood, which made her a bit less stabby than usual. And, of course, nobody said a word when they caught Skout weaving flower crowns out of some of the dried blossoms, especially when one of the crowns had found its way onto Toth's head, and currently rested upon her soft brown curls,

and that made all the difference.

**Author's Note:**

> For the record, there was this other fic I was working on centering around Episode 6, but because I have an essay due on Monday, and the fact I haven't really been feeling it, I haven't been working on it. But then this lovely anon began asking me about my work and sent in some prompts and, although this doesn't really align with any of the prompts I sent, I did want to make something for them to thank them, so, this is for you, random tumblr person!
> 
> Also: what up, I'm Julia, I'm 16, and I don't know a single thing about desert flowers.
> 
> Tumblr:  
> https://juliastartoons.tumblr.com


End file.
